BPO employee among 2 chain snatchers nabbed in Pune

Pune: After witnessing 11 chain-snatching incidents in the past two days, the top brass of Pune police finally swung into action and directed all the police station in-charge and crime branch inspectors to conduct heavy patrolling and nakabandi in the city.

During one such nakabandi on Friday morning, the Bharti Vidyapeeth police arrested two chain snatchers, one of them a BPO employee, near Ramesh Society on Kondhwa-Katraj road.

The suspects have been identified as Riyaz Shaikh and Akshay Pandagal, both residents of Kondhwa. With their arrest, the police claimed to have solved two chain-snatching incidents.

Speaking to dna, deputy commissioner of police (zone II) Shirish Sardeshpande said, “The duo had snatched the gold chain of a woman who was riding a moped on Pune-Satara road on March 13.

The woman had sustained injuries in that incident. On Friday morning, we had set up a nakabandi point in the area. While checking the motorcycles, we found a lot of mud on the duo’s motorcycle. As a result, we interrogated them and found that they were involved in chain-snatchings in the city.”

“Shaikh is working in a BPO firm and is convent educated while Akshay is jobless. We are checking their backgrounds. Our interrogations are still on,” he added. 3 more incidents, booty worth ` 2.83L gone

Three chain-snatching incidents were reported during the past 48 hours in the city wherein suspects decamped with gold chains worth Rs 2.83 lakh.

In the first case, Neelima Rahul Sakunde ( 30), a resident of Sambhaji Society in Sahakarnagar has lodged a complaint saying that two unidentified motorcycle-borne chain snatchers forcibly took away her gold mangasutra worth Rs 25,000 on Thursday. According to the police, Neelima along with her small kid was on her way to a pharmacy shop when the goons snatched the mangalsutra and sped away.

In the second incident, Santoshi Satyanarayan Yerveli ( 33), a resident of Pimpale Nilakh, has lodged a complaint with the Sangvi police saying that two unidentified chain snatchers took away her gold mangalsutra estimated worth Rs 1.97 lakh on Thursday. Santoshi along with her son had stepped out of the house and gone to the market to buy vegetables when the suspects struck and decamped with the booty.

In the third incident, Sangeeta Sureshbabu (38), a resident of Range Hills, Khadki has lodged a complaint with the police saying that two unidentified bikers accosted her at Range Hills, snatched her gold chain worth Rs 60.000 and escaped on Thursday. Sangeeta was on her way to take darshan at a local temple when the incident took place. No arrests have been made so far.